Guilty Read Free Page A

of impatient horns honking behind him. A split second later he stomped on the gas. The rear tires of the Taurus sent up plumes of water as the vehicle responded.
    "I was talking to him on the phone right before I called you." Tom's voice was steady despite the fact that the bad feeling he'd had was getting worse. He was rushing toward the building now, anxiously scanning as much of it as he could see while weaving in and out of traffic in an effort to get where he was going fast. Cars were parallel parked all along Filbert Street, the narrow, pre—Revolutionary War era avenue out in front of the Justice Center. People hurried along the sidewalk, past the building, and up and down the wide stone steps leading to the main entrance. A sea of umbrellas and splashing feet were about all he could see of the pedestrians. From outside the revolving doors, he got a glimpse of the security checkpoint with its guards and metal detectors. Nothing looked out of place. There was no sign of trouble. But his gut was telling him otherwise, and one thing he'd learned during his thirteen years as a cop was to never go against his gut.
    "He gave me a signal, like." Even as he scanned the area, Tom continued talking to Johnson. "Something's wrong. You need to alert whoever else you've got over there that something's possibly going down. Get some backup to Charlie's location, stat. And tell them to keep it quiet. No sirens, nothing like that. I just got a real creepy feeling."
    Johnson snorted. "I'm supposed to send in the troops because you've got a creepy feeling? "
    "Yeah."
    "Will do," Johnson said. He was enough of a professional not to take chances when it was a matter of another officer's safety—and not to question another cop's instincts. He covered the mouthpiece again, and Tom could hear him giving the necessary orders.
    "Where in the Justice Center?" Tom yelled into the phone. Yelling was necessary to get Johnson's attention again. Tom was in front of the Justice Center now, cruising past the long row of bumper-to-bumper parked cars, where there was, he discovered with a quick glance up the block, no longer an available place to park. Not that it was going to make any difference. Ignoring the cars piling up in honking indignation behind him, he double-parked beside a big silver Suburban.
    "Subbasement," Johnson replied. "Probably."
    Shit.
    The subbasement was a badly lit and ventilated rabbit warren two stories underground.   Holding cells for prisoners needed in court that day, administrative offices, the courtroom for arraignments, anterooms for lawyers and court officials and bail bondsmen—all that and more were located down there. The place teemed with activity from seven A.M. on as the accused, the convicted, the acquitted, and everything and everyone connected with their cases rotated in and out.
    Charlie could've found all kinds of trouble down there.
    "I'm on the scene," Tom said grimly, and disconnected.
    Jumping out, head bent, into the pouring rain that began instantly soaking his short, thick black hair and court-ready attire of navy sport jacket, white shirt, red tie, and gray slacks, he slammed the door and took off at a sprint toward the building. As he ran, he reached beneath his jacket to unsnap the safety strap on his Glock.
    If he was lucky, he wouldn't need it. But then, he'd never been very lucky.

C h a p t e r 3
    BEING A PROSECUTOR IS not for sissies, Kate White thought grimly as the backs of the elegant Stuart Weitzman pumps she had bought on eBay for ten dollars rubbed against her increasingly tender heels with every purposeful step she took. The pay was lousy, the perks were nonexistent, and the people—well, all she could say was that there were a few good apples mixed in with all the rotten ones. A very few.
    "Get a move on, would you? If we're late he'll hang us out to dry," Bryan Chen muttered behind her. A small, compact Asian-American, the forty-two-year-old veteran assistant district attorney was